Miami Surf Report - Alexa Skill
This project was recently featured in an article on The Inertia - the world's largest surfing publication!
Overview
The Miami Surf Report was an initiative by the Surfrider Foundation Miami Chapter to distribute the results of local water quality testing to surfers. This project evolved into a complete Alexa based Voice User Interface (VUI) for delivering daily surf reports, weekly outlooks, and water quality results - direct from the Blue Water Task Force Lab.
Included in the skill is the ability to check today's surf report, the weekly surf forecast, and the results of local water quality samples Just ask Alexa to "launch Miami Surf Report", and the skill will guide you through the local surf outlook and water quality results. This skill is updated daily to provide you with the most up to date surf and water quality conditions.
Included in the skill is the ability to check today's surf report, the weekly surf forecast, and the results of local water quality samples Just ask Alexa to "launch Miami Surf Report", and the skill will guide you through the local surf outlook and water quality results. This skill is updated daily to provide you with the most up to date surf and water quality conditions.
The Challenge
Local government agencies communicate the results of water pollution ineffectively, often up to 72 hours after the pollution has been identified and thousands of individuals have been exposed to the contamination (and only after a second round of testing confirms contamination). As a response to this problem, Surfrider Miami's Blue Water Task force was designed as citizen run sentinel health surveillance program to alert the local community and local officials about water quality problems as they are discovered.
The results coming from the BWTF lab are communicated to the local surfing community via a weekly email that is sent as soon as the lab data is read and complied - about 18-24 hours after the samples are collected from the beach (more 3x faster than department of public health which post it's results on a website that that is difficult to navigate and in local newspapers). Yet, the results of Surfrider Miami's notifications were only being sent to a small portion of Miami locals (~1,676 Surfrider supporter's who had subscribed to the alerts) and the email campaigns were receiving only a 16.5% open rate.
The results coming from the BWTF lab are communicated to the local surfing community via a weekly email that is sent as soon as the lab data is read and complied - about 18-24 hours after the samples are collected from the beach (more 3x faster than department of public health which post it's results on a website that that is difficult to navigate and in local newspapers). Yet, the results of Surfrider Miami's notifications were only being sent to a small portion of Miami locals (~1,676 Surfrider supporter's who had subscribed to the alerts) and the email campaigns were receiving only a 16.5% open rate.
The Miami Surf Report was developed as a way to increase the audience for these water quality notifications in a novel way. Let's be honest for a second...water quality is not the most interesting thing for local surfers and beachgoers. Through our research efforts not many individuals were looking up the water quality results prior to heading into the ocean so we decided to couple the delivery of our lab's results with updates on the surf activity and incorporated an easy way to learn about local surf conditions with both daily reports and a weekly forecast as a way to get our audience to engage with our data.
The Research
The Blue Water Task Force (BWTF) is the Surfrider Foundation’s volunteer-run, water testing, education and advocacy program. Surfrider chapters use this program to alert citizens and local officials about water quality problems and work toward solutions. Surfrider Miami is testing local beaches weekly by collecting water samples from our beaches. Results are shared with the local community (you can sign up here to receive water quality notifications).
The main goal of the BWTF is to fill in data gaps, improving the public’s knowledge of the safety of their beach water. BWTF water testing programs do this by measuring bacteria levels at marine beaches and compare them to federal and state water quality standards established by the EPA to protect public health in recreational waters.
Water samples will be collected weekly at 5 locations, from South Point to Surfside, these specific sites are also included in the Florida Department of Health’s Florida Healthy Beaches Program. Our BWTF weekly results will increase the frequency of beach water testing at these popular local beaches, and provide the community useful information about the current health of the waters that we swim and play in.
The main goal of the BWTF is to fill in data gaps, improving the public’s knowledge of the safety of their beach water. BWTF water testing programs do this by measuring bacteria levels at marine beaches and compare them to federal and state water quality standards established by the EPA to protect public health in recreational waters.
Water samples will be collected weekly at 5 locations, from South Point to Surfside, these specific sites are also included in the Florida Department of Health’s Florida Healthy Beaches Program. Our BWTF weekly results will increase the frequency of beach water testing at these popular local beaches, and provide the community useful information about the current health of the waters that we swim and play in.
As of 2015 Miami Dade County has a population of 2.693 million. Many of these people go to the beach on a regular basis for recreation and enjoyment (this isn't even counting tourists), yet water pollution near many local beaches and surf spots can cause numerous illnesses and even long-term health issues such as the one experienced by Chris Schumacher, who acquired a soil-borne bacterial infection from storm runoff while surfing and almost lost his eye. The County's department of Public Health conducts infrequent tests and distributes water quality alerts too late if a bad result if found...often 72 hours after the lab work has completed and thousands of individuals have been exposed to the polluted ocean water.
Polluted waters often contain many different disease-causing organisms (commonly referred to as pathogens) and surfers and swimmers are affected by both sewage-polluted water, which contains enteric pathogens (pathogens that live in human and animal digestive systems), and pathogens carried by urban runoff. The contraction of waterborne illnesses from these pathogens is often spread by the presence of these organisms in the water and inadvertent ingestion of the fecal or otherwise contaminated water. This can give a whole new meaning to having a “sick” surfing session.
Polluted beach water has been known to cause gastrointestinal illnesses such as the stomach flu, diarrhea, and vomiting, skin rashes, pinkeye, ear infections, meningitis, hepatitis A, encephalitis, staph infections (such as MRSA), parasitic illnesses caused cryptosporidiosis and leptospirosis, and even bizarre disease such as skin lesions. Viruses are often the cause of swimming-associated diseases and typically result in the majority of cases of gastroenteritis (“stomach flu”), hepatitis A, respiratory illnesses, infections of the ear, nose, and throat. Gastroenteritis, which may also be caused by waterborne bacteria, can cause symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, stomach aches, nausea, headaches, and febrile (feverish) symptoms. Other types of microbial disease that can be contracted by watermen/women and beachgoers include salmonellosis, shigellosis, infection caused by E. coli as well as other infections caused by amoeba, protozoa, and parasites in recreational waters which can cause giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, amoebic dysentery, skin rashes, and pink eye. Urban runoff provides a whole new dimension as well through a “toxic cocktail” of herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals, and other pollutants that may not be regulated or monitored by your public health department and they also cause health effects that are not fully understood.
Epidemiological studies, such as The Beaches Study have found that “bathing in temperate recreational waters with known point sources of faecal contamination (such as domestic sewage or storm-drain runoff) has been associated with an increased risk for transmission of infectious diseases (including gastroenteritis, and febrile, respiratory, skin, eye and ear illnesses).” Individuals who enjoy high-exposure activities, aka surfers, are at greater risk of acquiring an infection since they are typically in the water for extended periods of time, have a higher number of head immersions, and subsequently, ingest more water that the average beachgoer.
According to an intense systematic review and meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Epidemiology on February 28, 2018 there is an 86% increased risk (odds ratio of 1.86) of experiencing symptoms of illness from waterborne pathogens from recreational activities in marine waters. The study, which was the first systematic review to evaluate evidence on the increased risk of acquiring illnesses from bathing in seawater compared with non-bathers found that bathers in coastal waters have a greater risk of experiencing a variety of illnesses from being in the water. So, if you get sick after surfing, there is a solid chance that it was from polluted water.
Many states and local municipalities have established ocean water monitoring programs, but these testing programs only consist of infrequent or limited testing testing during times of high usage which may include total coliform, fecal coliform, and enterococcus at marine beaches and E coli in fresh water. Testing for viruses, hydrocarbons, herbicides and pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals, and other pollutants is rarely performed. Traditionally, the monitoring of microbial water quality for coastal waters used for recreational purposes (ie. beaches) has been regulated by measuring the concentrations of indicator microbes related to enteric pathogens that are found in the water. These microbes are typically found in human feces in high concentrations and are typically not pathogenic themselves, but indicate the presence of pathogenic bacteria.
While the these kinds of initiatives are essential for ensuring public health, the funding for water quality testing at the governmental level is constantly under threat (budgets for these programs in the state of Florida alone have been cut by over 40% in recent years), often inefficient, are full of data gaps to fully inform and protect the public, and rarely collect enough information about where and when individuals are getting sick from contact with polluted water and sewage discharge. In combination with widespread budget cuts, the costs of conducting water quality monitoring programs restricts the ability for the agencies responsible for monitoring beaches to testing at limited number of locations during periods of high use. As a result, the work that is being done to protect the health of the public at these locations by monitoring fecal indicator organisms (FIOs), often on a one day per week/month basis, is highly ineffective given the spatial and temporal fluctuations that occur naturally in coastal marine areas and the results are unlikely to capture high levels of pollution that occur between the government’s sampling. Studies have even shown that at beaches with good water quality and low numbers of indicator bacteria, bathers were still at an increased risk of experiencing gastrointestinal illness, respiratory infections, and eye and ear infections. In addition to that, acquired illnesses are rarely reported as the average time for recreational bathers to the onset of symptoms was six to seven days for gastrointestinal illness, four days for skin illnesses, five to six days for eye-illnesses, and three to four days for ear illnesses according to the Beaches Study.
As a result, local chapters of the Surfrider Foundation have been starting Blue Water Task Force (BWTF) Programs – which are essentially volunteer-run, water testing, education and advocacy programs focused on improving local water quality and alerting the local community about water pollution and discharge events that make it unsafe to surf. Surfrider chapters have been using this program to alert citizens and local officials about water quality problems and work toward solutions.
In places such as Miami, the Surfrider Foundation Miami Chapter became concerned enough about the local water quality to build a lab and to is now testing local beaches weekly by collecting water samples from the local beaches and surfing areas to augment the infrequent testing conducted by the City and the Florida Healthy Beaches Program. Results are then shared with the local community as the main goal of the BWTF is to fill in data gaps, improving the public’s knowledge of the safety of their beach water. BWTF water testing programs, such as the one in Miami, do this by measuring bacteria levels at marine beaches and comparing them to federal and state water quality standards established by the EPA to protect public health in recreational waters.
The Process |
The Miami Surf Report was developed using the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) on the Alexa Skill Developmer Console.
The interaction model (front-end) required a voice user interface that defined the functionalities and behaviors of the skill.
The hosted backend service holds the programming logic and is hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS) through a lambda function. It responds to the user's request.
In response to a user's utterance (this skill has a total of 17 user intents), speech audio is sent from the Echo device and then to Alexa (in the cloud). Alexa then uses automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU) to parse the request and identify that the request is being made to the "Miami Surf Report" skill. This information is then sent to the lambda function as a JSON object at the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) location which identifies the intent. Once the request is received, Alexa responds with a JSON object that includes output speech in text format. This output speech text is then converted to speech, returned to the Echo device, and is then played back to the user.
The hosted backend service holds the programming logic and is hosted on Amazon Web Service (AWS) through a lambda function. It responds to the user's request.
In response to a user's utterance (this skill has a total of 17 user intents), speech audio is sent from the Echo device and then to Alexa (in the cloud). Alexa then uses automatic speech recognition (ASR) and natural language understanding (NLU) to parse the request and identify that the request is being made to the "Miami Surf Report" skill. This information is then sent to the lambda function as a JSON object at the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) location which identifies the intent. Once the request is received, Alexa responds with a JSON object that includes output speech in text format. This output speech text is then converted to speech, returned to the Echo device, and is then played back to the user.
The user flow below illustrates some of the intricacies with designing a voice user interface, as human speech can be a little unpredictable. In designing an experience, it is important to consider typical speech patterns and understand + interpret user intents by predicting the numerous ways a user can ask for something and interact with the device. To do this, a basic user flow should be created and a number of utterances should be defined (similar to synonyms) for each intent so that the experience / interaction does not fall apart.
To capture utterances that have not been defined, an "else" intent was build to redirect the user.
To capture utterances that have not been defined, an "else" intent was build to redirect the user.
The Miami Surf Report is a dynamic Alexa skill, meaning that it is using live data that can be updated on the fly. The simplest way to do this (ie. read the lab report data for the water quality results and surf report information) was to link the skill to a Google sheet which could be updated by the forecasters and the lab directly.
The skill was created this way to make it easy for the various Surfrider Miami members to update the information being consumed by the end user. To accomplish this, the data is entered into the google sheet which is automatically converted into a JSON format (a lightweight format for transferring data). An API request is then made by the skill in response to a user's request (GET request) which returns the JSON, extracts the data and then Alexa pronounces that data to the user.
The skill was created this way to make it easy for the various Surfrider Miami members to update the information being consumed by the end user. To accomplish this, the data is entered into the google sheet which is automatically converted into a JSON format (a lightweight format for transferring data). An API request is then made by the skill in response to a user's request (GET request) which returns the JSON, extracts the data and then Alexa pronounces that data to the user.
